mulberryshoots

I’ve always thought there was a secret about me that others knew and wouldn’t tell me, and that I couldn’t see for myself. Have you ever felt that way too?

At first, I thought it was the reason that my mother treated me badly; or that my father ignored me. Or the reason that the love of my life in college suddenly quit on me. Later on, I realized it was more about them and what was going on in their lives than it was about me. I think that I wanted love too much. And when things didn’t work out, I blamed it on myself. It’s easy to do that and the desire for and loss of love makes the world go around, doesn’t it?

Life went on and I did time in a first marriage that was subversive, went nowhere and was radio silent. It lasted a very long time, partly due to my own lack of will to rock the boat, even though I wanted to be on dry land.

Later on, I thought maybe it was due to the intensity of my personality or maybe because I was too strong-willed. Now, I don’t care anymore. I don’t think there’s anything hidden that I haven’t dug around or dug up somewhere along the line. In fact, I think that fearing that there was a secret made me slightly paranoid and defensive; erring on the side of spending too much money on things and wanting to please other people in order to over-compensate, willy nilly. It seems rather silly that I felt I had to pay a surcharge in order to be accepted. Sort of like having to work harder for less credit than everyone else because you’re a woman and also a minority, a throwback to the last century.

What a waste of resources. Mostly a waste of my own sense of self, I think. You can’t change other people, they say, only yourself.

But on that one, I think I’m fine just as I am. Or, in today’s jargon, “I’m good.”

Getting a life of my own is not so easy. Not at my age. And not after all this time of project managing everybody else’s. Almost thirty years of that time has been spent in a career of basically telling everyone what to do and when to do it so that corporate deadlines in the biotech industry were met. Usually, it was in an environment of “Do or Die” so that the very effort took a toll on everyone; and the rewards were not always apparent. Nevertheless, being depended upon in that manner went a long way. Plus, it allowed me to recoup financially from a first marriage that ended in bankruptcy.

Coming from a highly driven, demanding family heritage for excelling in everything that one touches didn’t help either. Once, someone said to me how bossy I was, even though her telling me that indicated she was even more bossy, which didn’t seem to bother her at all somehow.

So now, after a lifetime of “doing for others” more than I have done for myself, I’m feeling that it’s time to let my raison d’etre go. People don’t want to be taken care of, really. Everyone wants to do their own thing, in their own way. It’s now up to me to figure out what that is, exactly, and what that would look like for me. It’s not so easily apparent because there are filters that shadow my outlook. So peeling them away might take a little time. On the other hand, maybe not.

I guess I should stop being a Chinese mother. Or in today’s vernacular, a “Tiger Mother.” One who protects her cubs no matter what. They don’t seem to want or need it. And I’m too worn out from their lifetime of worrying over them. There comes a time in a parent’s life when the kids just want to do things their way–this starts from an early age, but one scurries about nevertheless, placing a safety net under them, just in case.

When they stop telling you about what they are doing and go their own way, that’s a sign to let them go. Not just physically, of course, but mentally and emotionally. If they want to lead their lives in ways that you would not consider yourself, your job is to stay silent. Past a certain age (theirs and mine) your opinion doesn’t count for very much anymore.

Holiday plans are set up without my input, even though unvoiced expectations are still in place (“go ahead and do what you want, Mom”) but it’s not the same anymore. I still get to provide and pay for the venue (the “magical” setting, decorations, food and drink) but they do what they please (arriving late, rushing away.) How did this happen? Respect and regard somehow got lost in the shuffle. Once gone, it’s gone forever.

What does one do with this loss? If you figure it out, let me know.

Postscript: I think I’ve found the answer: “get a life of my own!”

So it occurred to me just now that maybe I’m trying too hard. Trying to clean up things so that it’s not left for my daughters to deal with when I’m no longer around. Trying to be creative all the time. Trying to be less materialistic while satisfying yearnings that I have had all my life (like wonderful things for the kitchen.) Then remonstrating with myself for buying more things. Endless repeats.

Trying to make peace with the past by telling myself no one is to blame and also not to blame myself. Trying to make the most of the time I have left. What if that’s a long time–say, ten years or more? Wouldn’t this pace be exhausting and humorless to boot?

But what if it’s tomorrow? So what, I say. I won’t be able to “catch up” or “do more” whether it’s tomorrow or a decade from now. I think I need to chill out. Enjoy this gorgeous day with soft breezes, cool, dry air, the sun out–the house is quiet. Not looking for advice. Not giving advice, for once.

Just feel the pleasure of my life and all the riches it offers up, taken or not. Give up the unhelpful habit of eating the acrid dust of the past. Give up trying to control anyone’s actions but my own. What do you call that? Doesn’t matter because I’m there.

And, I’m here. In my place.

I’ve been reading Stephen Mitchell’s new English version of the Tao te Ching. His approach is clear: not a translation from a language point of view because he neither reads nor writes Chinese; but a new English “version” of what SM thinks Lao Tzu would have said, had his words not been misintrepreted or understated by others throughout the eons.

Well, I’m glad he thinks he knows what Lao Tzu was all about and would have wanted to say. I majored in history so I have some knowledge about historiography: how events are interpreted and re-interpreted through the years until there is no semblance of what really happened or was actually written or said at the time. All that’s left are the footprints of people who wrote about them from their own point of view, one layered upon or next to another.

I remember meeting Stephen Mitchell who was in the same class as my ex-husband at Amherst College. He had long hair then, like many others. He’s come a long way since then–and after divorcing his first wife, an Asian acupuncturist named Joyce to whom this volume is dedicated, embarked on a second marriage with the very visible, Byron Katie, who espouses a methodology called “The Work.” What a change! Katie’s “work” requires that you turn every negative and ugly thought you have about someone back onto yourself (as though it’s only a projection in your mind.) I’ve tried it when I first read about it and found it a stretch at times. An odd combo, (the Tao and “projections”) it seems to me. But what do I know?

In any case, I read the Tao te Ching paperback in a relatively short time. I liked Mitchell’s alternating use of the gender “he” and “she” to represent the Tao. Many women, he says, appreciated this device of making the omniscient female as well as male.That’s a first, I think. In any case, reading this writing does take me out of the realm of usual thought. Refreshing actually. Calming too. Here’s one I thought might be appropriate to post, given the thread of thoughts, reactions and sentiments expressed in both my blogs recently.

Number 79:

Failure is an opportunity.
If you blame someone else,
there is no end to the blame.

Therefore the Master
fulfills her own obligations
and corrects her own mistakes.
She does what she needs to do
and demands nothing of others.

With this reading, I’m ready to head into the weekend. What about you?

So, if you’ve been reading my posts, you can see that while I thought I’d spend the summer cleaning out and simplifying our home, taking things to the consignment shop, dropping a few things off at the auction house, the rest to Goodwill, it turns out that the events around me have given me a chance to clean my own psyche out while I’m at it.

But today, I’ve had enough. Quite enough, as a matter of fact. I’ve given it my best and tried to help out where I can. But people sometimes keep taking when you tell them you’ve given enough: it’s their business and it’s their karma. But they still don’t leave you alone.

Right now, I’m drawing the line. Closing the curtain. Taking a time-out. I think I should go shopping or something, don’t you?

You know, this summer has been just rife with people’s tragedies, people whom we’re pretty close to: suicides of young people, deaths from old-age, contentious marital strife roiling around innocent young children. I have been wondering why, and why now? The answer is that I don’t know. There seems to be an epidemic of bad luck, misfortune and just plain hardship. Personal tragedies of Shakespearean proportions.

What I do know is that there is not much one can do to help. Because I have tried and failed most of the time. Grieving is as personal as it can be. Some people want to talk about it. Others deflect angrily. Everyone asks what more they could have done. Why didn’t they know? Why did this happen? What went wrong?

Many things that used to bug me now pale in comparison. This confluence of personal grieving has shut me up. I retreat into the companionship of my friendships and marriage with gratitude and forbearance. Being still seems to help. That’s about all.

I think I’m making progress on my summer project, clearing and cleaning things out of our home, providing for more space in between and opening up the way that we live to a more simple place (real and imagined.)

In the process, I have noticed that I have been ruminating about myself and habits that are so ingrained that I am not so aware they are even there. Like wanting to give people things. I’m the grande dame of present-giving–a benefit or a burden for many, depending upon how they view it (my intention and the object.) I like to put things aside in the bottom drawer of a chest of drawers to save for the coming Christmas, for example. But as time has passed, Christmas, a well-worn ritual or tradition in our family has slowly dissipated, like a sand castle on the beach, lapped by the incoming tide as the afternoon of my life wears on.

Something happened recently where a gift that I sent to someone arrived completely broken into pieces. I was shocked because I had wrapped it (I thought) especially carefully in a wooden Japanese box, then nestled into another larger box full of styrofoam peanuts. Alas, the fragile contents never made it intact. Worse yet, it was an unwelcome surprise to the person it was intended for, and added to the pain that I had meant to assuage. Rather, the Universe put down a lesson for me. Which is to stop doing that any longer. People don’t really want “things” when they are in pain. That this broken box brought even more fragments to deal with was something not to be ignored. So, I started thinking about where the gift-giving intention arose from (perhaps feeling I am myself not enough without bearing gifts.) And concluded that it’s time for a change.

I had also thought that my children might want to have some of the things I’ve collected over the years later on. But, they have small houses with not even enough room for their own things, let alone more things of mine. So, it’s off to the auction house next week to skim off the crust of things as a start.

Everything seems to be circular these days. Cleaning out, thinking about intentions– such as they were, finding outlets, moving things out, starting their usefulness over again. Over and over. Just like us, I think. This summer of reflection has been sobering and rejuvenating in its own way. There’s no good in having regrets about follies of the past; or even excessiveness from another place in time. Although I’ve had a bunch, believe me.